INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
The country’s unemployment rate increased to 4.7 percent in July as more young Filipinos entered the labor force but could not find jobs, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported on Friday.
Preliminary results of the PSA’s July round of the Labor Force Survey (LFS) showed the unemployment rate moved at its highest pace in a year or since the 4.9 percent in July 2023, translating to 2.38 million jobless Filipinos.
This was higher compared to the 3.1 percent jobless rate in the previous month.
READ: Jobless rate falls to 3.1% in June, says PSA
In July, the youth labor force participation rate (LFPR) rose to 34.2 percent, up from 33.7 percent in the previous month. However, the youth employment rate decreased to 85.2 percent, down from 91.4 percent.
The underemployment rate – the share of those already working but still looking for more work or longer working hours to total employed population – stood at 12.1 percent in July, unchanged from the previous month but an improvement from 15.9 percent a year ago.
This translated to 5.78 million Filipinos looking for an additional job or longer working hours.
Underemployment in July was the highest since the 14.6 percent in April
The country’s LFPR – the proportion of the total labor in the working-age population of 15 years old and over – fell to 63.5 percent from 66 percent in the previous month.
July’s employment rate dropped to 95.3 percent, lower than the 96.9 percent logged in June. In terms of level, there were 47.70 million employed Filipinos in May, lower than 50.28 million in the previous month.
The employment rate was also the lowest year or since the 95.1 percent in July 2023.